Those men that did fight,

And did pray day and night,

For the Parliament and its attendant,
Did make all that bustle

The King out to justle,

And bring in the Independent,

But now we all clearly see what was the end on't.1

Now their idol's thrown down with their sooterkin also,
About which they did make such a pother;

And, though their contrivance did make one thing to fall so,
We have drank ourselves into another;

And now, my lads, we
May still Cavaliers be,

In spite of the Committee's frown;

We will drink and we'll sing,
And each health to our King

Shall be loyally drunk in the 'Crown,"
Which shall be the standard in every town.

Their politic would-be's do but show themselves asses,
That other men's calling invade;

We only converse with pots and with glasses,-
Let the rulers alone with their trade.
The Lion of the Tower

Their estates does devour,

Without showing law for't or reason;
Into prison we get

For the crime called debt,

Where our bodies and brains we do season,

And that is ne'er taken for murder or treason.

Where our ditties still be, "Give's more drink, give's more drink, boys!

Let those that are frugal take care!"

Our gaolers and we will live by our chink, boys,

While our creditors live by the air.

Here we live at our ease,

And get craft and grease,

'Till we've merrily spent all our store; Then, as drink brought us in, 'Twill redeem us agen;

We got in because we were poor,

And swear ourselves out on the very same score.

1 A reference to the project of making Cromwell king.

JOHN DRYDEN.

[Born in Aldwinkle All Saints, Northamptonshire, towards 1631; died in London, 1 May 1700].

ON THE YOUNG STATESMEN.

WRITTEN IN 1680.

CLARENDON had law and sense;
Clifford was fierce and brave;
Bennet's grave look was a pretence:
And Danby's matchless impudence
Helped to support the knave.

But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory.
These will appear such chits in story
'Twill turn all politics to jests,-
To be repeated like John Dory,
When fiddlers sing at feasts.

Protect us, mighty Providence!

What would these madmen have?
First, they would bribe us without pence.
Deceive us without common sense,
And without power enslave.

Shall freeborn men, in humble awe,
Submit to servile shame,—

Who from consent and custom draw
The same right to be ruled by law
Which kings pretend to reign?

The duke shall wield his conquering sword,
The chancellor make a speech,

The king shall pass his honest word,
The pawned revenue sums afford,
And then, come kiss my breech.

So have I seen a king on chess

(His rooks and knights withdrawn,

His queen and bishops in distress)
Shifting about grow less and less,
With here and there a pawn.

KATHARINE PHILIPS.

[Born towards 1632, died of small-pox in 1664. Her maiden name was Fowler, and she married James Philips Esq., of the Priory of Cardigan. Herself and all her immediate society assumed philandering fancy-names: she was "Orinda," or, as several of her highly distinguished contemporaries lavishly called her, "the matchless Orinda." Some of her poems got about during her brief lifetime, but without her sanction. Orinda, though not exactly "matchless," must have been a very gifted woman-of elevated mind and character, warm attachments, and no inconsiderable poetic endowment: she was full mistress of the faculty of nervous and direct expression in verse].

ΤΟ ΑΝΤΕΝOR,1

.

ON A PAPER OF MINE WHICH J. J. THREATENS TO PUBLISH TO PREJUDICE HIM.

MUST then my crimes become thy scandal too?
Why, sure the devil hath not much to do!
The weakness of the other charge is clear,
When such a trifle must bring up the rear.
But this is mad design, for who before
Lost his repute upon another's score?
My love and life, I must confess, are thine,-
But not my errors, they are only mine.
And, if my faults must be for thine allowed
It will be hard to dissipate the cloud :
For Eve's rebellion did not Adam blast,
Until himself forbidden fruit did taste.
'Tis possible this magazine of hell
(Whose name would turn a verse into a spell,
Whose mischief is congenial to his life)
May yet enjoy an honourable wife.
Nor let his ill be reckoned as her blame,
Nor yet my follies blast Antenor's name.
But, if those lines a punishment could call
Lasting and great as this dark-lantern's gall,
Alone I'd court the torments with content,
To testify that thou art innocent.

So, if my ink through malice proved a stain,
My blood should justly wash it off again.
But, since that mint of slander could invent
To make so dull a rhyme his instrument,
Let verse revenge the quarrel. But he's worse
Than wishes, and below a poet's curse;

And more than this wit knows not how to give,—
Let him be still himself, and let him live.

1 The authoress's husband.

EARL OF DORSET (CHARLES SACKVILLE).

[Born in 1637, died in 1706. Witty and dissipated in his youth, he became, as age advanced, a political personage of some importance, and, concurring in the revolution under William III., was created Lord Chamberlain of the Household. He was at all times a generous supporter of men of genius],

SONG.1

To all you ladies now at land
We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write;

The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore, to write to you,
With a fa, la, la, la, la.2

For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain,

Yet, if rough Neptune rouse the wind
To wave the azure main,

Our paper, pen and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.

Then, if we write not by each post,
Think not we are unkind;
Nor yet conclude our ships are lost,
By Dutchmen or by wind;

Our tears we'll send a speedier way,-
The tide shall bring them twice a-day.

The king, with wonder and surprise,
Will swear the seas grow bold,
Because the tides will higher rise
Than e'er they used of old :
But let him know, it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know
Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,
And quit their fort at Goree :

For what resistance can they find

From men who've left their hearts behind?

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,

No sorrow we shall find:

1 Written at sea in the Dutch War, 1665: composed (or at any rate completed) the night before the great engagement in which the Dutch Admiral, Opdam, and all his crew, were blown up.

2 Burden repeated to each stanza.

'Tis then no matter how things go,
Or who's our friend, or who's our foe.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main,
Or else at serious ombre play:
But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you.

But now our fears tempestuous grow,
And cast our hopes away;
Whilst you, regardless of our woe,
Sit careless at a play:

Perhaps, permit some happier man
To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan.

When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note,

As if it sighed with each man's care
For being so remote,

Think then how often love we've made
To you, when all those tunes were played.

In justice you cannot refuse

To think of our distress,

When we for hopes of honour lose
Our certain happiness;

All those designs are but to prove
Ourselves more worthy of your love.

And now we've told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears,
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity from your tears;
Let's hear of no inconstancy,-
We have too much of that at sea.
With a fa, la, la, la, la.

WILLIAM WALSH.

[Born in 1663, died towards 1709. He was a friend of Dryden, who termed him "the best critic of our nation:" he also encouraged Pope in his early career].

THE DESPAIRING LOVER.

DISTRACTED with care

For Phyllis the fair;

Since nothing could move her,

Poor Damon, her lover,

Resolves in despair

No longer to languish,